Synopsis

After a painful breakup, Joel Barish discovers that Clementine Kruczynski has erased him from her memory through an experimental procedure. He decides to do the same, but as his memories of their relationship disappear, Joel realizes how much their shared experiences mean to him. Inside his collapsing mind, he tries to hide Clementine among memories unrelated to their romance.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film's central idea began with a suggestion from French artist Pierre Bismuth: a person could receive a notice saying that someone they knew had erased them from their memory. Bismuth passed the idea to Michel Gondry, who developed it with Charlie Kaufman.

• The title comes from Alexander Pope's 1717 poem "Eloisa to Abelard." The phrase describes the supposed happiness of a mind untouched by painful memories.

• The production favored practical, low-tech illusions over extensive computer-generated effects. Forced perspective, distorted sets, hidden wires, handheld camera work, and carefully choreographed movement create many of the film's most surreal images.

• One scene showing two versions of Joel in the same room was achieved without digital compositing. Jim Carrey repeatedly changed position, clothing, and posture while the camera captured the separate parts of the action.

• Snow was written into the screenplay, but producing artificial snow was considered too expensive. Natural snowfall occurred repeatedly during filming and supplied the production with an unexpected visual advantage.

• The film was shot from January 13 through April 3, 2003, with New York locations helping ground its science-fiction premise in an ordinary, recognizable world.

• Beck's cover of "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" plays over the closing credits. The song was originally recorded by the Korgis in 1980.

• The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 77th Academy Awards in 2005 and was selected by the American Film Institute as one of the ten outstanding films of 2004.